The Village Mod (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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villagememes2020-11-19 10:10 pm
villagemod) wrote in villagememes2020-11-19 10:10 pm
Entry tags:
test drive — winter
WINTER TEST DRIVE
Welcome to the test drive and thank you for your interest in The Village. This test drive is not game canon but will allow players the opportunity to experiment with game mechanics, the setting, and the flexibility of choice allowed by this game. The following prompts are examples of typical situations characters might face in the game. At least one thread from the TDM is required as part of the game's application process.
The setting details and locations are still being unveiled in the game, so prospective players are welcome to play with established locations or create their own within the general setting of Mathias.( Recommended listening: ♫ )
INTO THE ENDLESS
Winter has arrived in Mathias. Snow falls steadily, big puffy flakes that pile up quickly in drifts as the wind blows them around town. The trees in the forest are covered in it, the branches bending under the weight and shaking when the piles fall from them to the forest floor. The roofs of buildings become solid white and drifts form in doorways as the wind tries to rush inside anywhere it can.
New arrivals wake in the forest, with its winding paths twisting back on themselves as they branch in either direction. It isn't safe to stray from the path, there is a menacing fog that waits just a few yards inward in any direction, but for now, there is nothing impeding movement along those snow-covered paths that cut through the trees. Continue stumbling in one direction and you'll reach the small town, coming out near the mishmash of quaint houses that nestle beside crumbling ruins that used to be homes. But choose the other and you'll seem to stumble on forever, huddling against the wind until there seems to be a clearing up ahead—
And then nothing. The earth opens up before you in a ravine so deep that the bottom cannot be seen. The other side can be seen, tantalizingly out of reach, and there is the sense that safety is just beyond, if only you could get there. But with that sensation is also the knowledge that if you stay here, you will die. The edge seems unsteady, like getting too close would set it crumbling and send you tumbling into that dark endless nothing that waits below...
BODIES WITHOUT SOULS
Benedict Books is nestled quaintly on the square surrounding Mathias's Town Hall, a thick layer of dirt covering the front windows. Looking through those windows provides a much different view than looking directly into the shop through the doorway — vague shapes and forms of figures seem to be inside, though no details can be determined through the streaks of grime. Flickers that resemble flashlights can be seen passing along the windows from time to time, and on occasion there is even a muffled tapping sound that comes from behind the glass, as if someone is trying to get your attention. The same distorted figures can be seen looking through the windows from the inside outward, but moving from one side or the other reveals... nothing. There is nothing there, and perhaps it is all in your imagination.
A portrait hangs at the front of the store to illustrate the namesake of the little shop... that may, in fact, not be so little. Dust covers everything in sight and detritus litters the wooden floor, as if someone left the door open and allowed half the forest inside.
The books are mostly familiar titles from the 1990s and earlier, but close examination will reveal that key details seem to have been changed. They fill shelves in neat lines along the walls and rows in between, the building almost seeming to stretch on forever until, finally, a small office can be seen tucked away in the back. A glance back toward the front door gives the impression that the room isn't that big, after all. Strange that you previously thought so.
Prying the door open is the only way to get inside the small office; the hinges have rusted and are caked with dirt and grime. Search as you might, there are no interesting bits of information to be found here beyond a few inventory lists on the little desk. There is, however, a green and gold safe in the corner that, no matter how many times one turns the dial, simply clicks and clicks. Scratches around the safe indicate that someone tried to get in at one point, though there's no indication as to whether they succeeded.
THE END APPROACHES
Standing at the center of Mathias, the town hall is a modest two-story building that would be welcoming if not for the faded sign, chipped paint, and deafening silence within its empty halls. It's a typical government building, with a reception desk at the front and rows of identical offices within, the names half faded from each door. But what catches the attention is a large bulletin board on the main wall beside the reception desk, once meant to hold flyers or announcements for the community.
What it holds now is decidedly different. Tacked onto the board are scraps of paper covered in an assortment of handwriting styles — requests for supplies should anyone find them, pieces of information shared in the hopes of someone understanding the strange symbols and mathematical equations, notes about those missing or recently deceased. And over the center of the board, tacked on top of other papers, is a map discolored with age. Mathias Township can be read in the corner, a stretch of forest displayed beneath it, but everything else has been smeared to illegibility with red... ink? Upon close examination, a keen eye will realize that the ink is actually blood, though whether it is human is unknown. And scrawled across that forest, nearly covering the illustration of a clearing and a large house within, are the wordshe is coming
A number of tarnished metal pushpins are scattered around the edges of the board, waiting for future messages to be shared, and a stack of pristine white paper and pile of cheap ballpoint pens rest on one of three chairs beside the board. The chairs are clearly meant for those waiting for meetings and are covered in the same layer of grime as everything else in the building — everything except the pens, paper, and bulletin board.
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"That depends. Do those pointers involve you feeling me up to make sure my arm's angled right?"
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"No, I promise I'll keep my hands to myself. You're way too fucking young for me, I can promise you that."
He motions towards the window. "I was a coach once upon a time, that's all. And I can damn sure respect the urge to want to tear this place to the ground."
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Athena levels a glare at the cracked window. It hasn't done anything to deter the... things moving inside. She hugs herself, glad that she at least helped herself to a coat from one of the empty houses.
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He idly crosses his arms and tilts his head, inspecting the window. "Relax your shoulders. Helps if you're aiming at something... like that crack right there. The deep one."
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She tilts her head, like she's admitting to something, even as she goes to retrieve the heavier rock. "No guarantees that I'll have any fucking clue where it is."
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"How was Virginia treating you before you wound up in this shithole?"
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Athena narrows her eyes at him. “Oh fuck me, you’re not some crazy doomsday prepper or something, are you? I mean if you were you’d probably be living for this shit—” she gestures at their surroundings “—but still.”
She lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Same way any WASP-y suburb treats a seventeen-year-old felon, I guess? My aunt’s cool, the high school’s mostly cool, Jeff’s cool, and everybody thinks I’m a freak.”
Athena throws her hands up in a gesture that’s energetically noncommittal. “I mean, I’m from Philly, so they’re not wrong.”
She’s technically not from Philadelphia either, in the strictest sense, but it was always, always more home than New York.
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"How do you think you got here?" Just-- out of curiosity. Surely little Dorothy here has realized she is far from Kansas.
He snorts in amusement at her answer, giving a shake of his head. "Best way to deal with assholes like that is to own whatever it is you are, you know? Let them know it doesn't bother you. And if that fails... well, there's always other ways to get'em off your back."
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"I don't know," she says finally, quietly. "I assumed someone used their Gift on me, or something, knocked me out. But that doesn't make sense really. None of this makes sense."
Athena lines up for another try at the window, focusing on that, on the deep crack. Relaxing her shoulders. She chucks the rock hard and it hits just to one side of the crack, deepening it and leaving a little fractured starburst on the glass. "Mostly I don't give a shit what they think, to be honest. I mean, sometimes I do, but."
She shrugs. "They don't know where I've been."
It's only half a lie. Sometimes she doesn't give a shit. Sometimes she cares a lot. But there's no point in being vocally upset over something she can't really change.
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When she throws again, he gives an impressed whistle. Not bad, not bad. Kid has a hell of a throwing arm. "Exactly. They don't know shit... and until they know shit, if they ever get that pleasure, what they think doesn't amount to much, right?"
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Athena flaps her arms in the direction of the world at large. "Like... the fucking Gift. The fuck do you mean what the fuck does it mean."
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Athena takes a step back, starting to think this guy might be more nuts than he looks.
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"I'm near a place called Alexandria in Virginia back home." Better than saying a warehouse compound, right?
"Look, I don't know how to prove this to you... but nearly everybody who shows up here, they come from some place different. It's beyond my ability to really understand it too, so I just try to roll with it. I just know-- there was this British guy who claimed he was a Master of the goddamn Dark Arts. Real grouchy bastard, but he was cool. Then I met an honest to God cowboy, like from the old fucking west. I live with him actually. Hell, but I don't blame you if you think I'm crazy. Half the time, I'm convinced I'm insane, kid. None of this should be happening."
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"I don't give a shit if you think it's cool," she says frankly. "I give a shit if you jump me because you don't like the Gifted."
Athena stays quiet for a long moment, trying to wrap her head around what he's saying. The whole thing about some guy saying he's a master of the Dark Arts doesn't phase her too much--there are plenty of dumbass nerds who treat the Gift like that--but the rest of it?
"You know you sound fucking high, right?"
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He lets out a laugh at that remark. "I wish I fucking was, let me tell you."
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"So. Just, like, to make sure I'm getting this. You're saying everyone here is from a different world."
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